Slide magazines are known magazines having compartments for receiving cassettes. Such magazines may also be used, however, as an accessory part for microtome devices for receiving cassettes with medical samples (object blocks) embedded therein (DE 20 2004 006 U1). For processing a sample, the cassette is taken out of the magazine by a supply device allocated to the microtome device. To this end, the entire magazine is displaced so far that the respective cassette to be taken out is located in a receiving area of the supply device. The necessary travel and guide distance for a magazine corresponds to the length of the entire magazine.
The displacement of the magazine is necessary when cassettes are to be taken from the magazine in an arbitrary order. Within the framework of an increasingly automated sample processing, however, the cassettes are often processed step-by-step one after the other in accordance with their placement in the magazine. To this end, too, a conventional magazine has to be displaced over its entire length.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,691,988 discloses a device for staining samples on object carriers for microscopes. The sample carriers can be immersed in various containers with staining solutions within a housing.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,040,929 discloses a storage container for tablets that includes a displacement mechanism that can be moved back and forth and by means of which the tablets can be dispensed from the storage container one after the other.
DE 2 306 967 discloses a device for the output of objects from a vending machine, in which a back and forth two-way translational motion is converted into an intermittent one-way translational motion.